I think that it is important to play regularly, not just play for necessarily a long period. I find it better to play a little each day rather than a long session once a week.
I confess that I only play for a short period of time, probably 10 – 30 minutes a day, but I am fairly strict about doing this every day. I do not feel the same way about missing a day and making up he time the next day. I find it less productive.
Mostly I am playing an acoustic guitar for this.
I am also pretty sloppy about practice, and at this point I am really concentrating a lot more on composition. I try to stretch this to my guitar practice though, and I find I spend a lot of time working on chord progressions that I find interesting that I can then carry on over to some kind of compositional exercise.
I use my guitar practice as a way to expand my knowledge of chords and chord progressions looking at ways to create interest from standard diatonic progressions. I have been looking at a few things lately
- Diatonic chords
- Borrowed chords – mostly from the parallel minor
- Secondary dominants
- Suspensions
- Added tone chords
I am also always looking at ways to include modulations and transitions, finding ways to switch key smoothly.
I do spend a little time dicking about with scalar melodies and chord tone melodies, but mostly I am using my guitar practice as a vehicle for improved harmonic knowledge.
How does your guitar practice go?
What do you enjoy working on?
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